"1979" by Smashing Pumpkins is about Billy Corgan entering adulthood. A more accurate year would be 1983, but 1979 was easier to rhyme.
Joni Mitchell wrote "Woodstock" - the most popular song about the festival - but didn't attend the event because she was booked on The Dick Cavett Show.
"True" by Spandau Ballet has some lyrics based on parts of the Vladimir Nabokov novel Lolita, including "Take your seaside arms," which in the book is "That little girl with her seaside limbs."
After Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale coupled up in 1996, Rossdale's Bush bandmates referred to their hit song "Everything Zen" as "Everything Gwen."
The line in John Mellencamp's "Cherry Bomb" that sounds like "that's when a smoke was a smoke" is actually "that's when a sport was a sport," according to the published lyric. In that sense, "sport" is an endearment for someone of good nature.
The line "satellite of love" in the Def Leppard song "Rocket" came from the title of a 1972 Lou Reed song.
You may not recognize his name, but you will certainly recognize Peter Lord's songs. He wrote the bevy of hits from Paula Abdul's second album, Spellbound.
The co-writer/guitarist on many Alice Cooper hits, Dick was also Lou Reed's axeman on the Rock n' Roll Animal album.
Fishbone has always enjoyed much more acclaim than popularity - Angelo might know why.
Into the vaults for Bruce Pollock's 1984 conversation with the esteemed bluesman. Hooker talks about transforming a Tony Bennett classic and why you don't have to be sad and lonely to write the blues.
Emilio talks about what it's like to write and perform with the Tower of Power horns, and why every struggling band should have a friend like Huey Lewis.
The Creed lead singer reveals the "ego and self-fulfillment" he now sees in one of the band's biggest hits.